New Year – new name

We liked the name Academies Week, but many of you did not. Rightly, you said it excluded lots of the schools we write about. The name also confused because it looked like we favoured one school type over another – when we actually do impartial reporting

So, we’re changing it.

From Friday, January 9 2015, we will be called Schools Week.

Everything else in the paper will stay the same. You’ll get the same investigative reporting, thought-provoking opinions and informative round-ups about what is happening in education.

We simply won’t be doing it under a name that’s not quite right. Instead our new name will reflect that we write useful stories in an impartial and determined way so people all across the whole school sector are fully informed.

We’re really excited about this change and hope you will be too. Oh, and keep hold of those Academies Week mugs. They’ll be collector’s items one day.

Feedback

Ian

Good idea because I thought you had aligned the paper to a political ideology and I had decided not to read the paper for that reason. If the paper is about all schools then I will start reading it. So, yes I agree that you did need to change the name, because it certainly misled me, and well done for realising this and doing something concrete about it instead of ploughing on and spinning a story. How about trying to get the DfE to cut the “spin” and be open, honest, and factual, in a similar way.

Sarah

I agree with Ian. It’s very irritating when the vast majority of primary schools are still maintained by local authorities to have a publication purporting to cover the entire education sector with the Academy label. It’s also quite insulting to individual maintained schools, many of very high quality and in the forefront of innovative curriculum delivery. Well done for recognising the incongruity of the name and changing it! I like the publication very much in every other way.

David

Here’s a crazy idea. A national cohort of institutions which are all state-funded, governed & accountable in the same way. All secular, giving equal weight to all religions, philosophies and ethics. All expected to be excellent. Everyone goes to the nearest one, and learns the same thing. We could call them ‘Schools’.

Victoria Jaquiss

I like that cohort of institutions called “schools”, and I would add being local to the concept, so that children could walk to their local school and learn alongside their neighbours, strengthen their schools and their bonds of neighbourhood. And I wouldn’t worry about excellent, just good enough, or fit for purpose, We can’t be excellent all the time. In life, in marriage, at work, at school. It’s an unrealistic expectation that can only lead to disappointment. And what is “excellent” anyway?